


know

by petalloso



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, and proceeding to pass out, keith overworking himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 05:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7561405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalloso/pseuds/petalloso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith couldn’t feel his legs. Upon further realization, he couldn’t feel his arms either, or his hands. He could, however, feel Lance’s hands, and they were all over him, running up and down his chest in inspection, tilting his chin this way and that, pulling him up from the floor where he figured he’d landed probably because his knees had just given out on him.</p><p>“Stupid,” he heard Lance say. “You blew out your legs.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	know

**Author's Note:**

> keith is too hardcore

 Keith couldn’t feel his legs. Upon further realization, he couldn’t feel his arms either, or his hands. He could, however, feel Lance’s hands, and they were all over him, running up and down his chest in inspection, tilting his chin this way and that, pulling him up from the floor where he figured he’d landed probably because his knees had just given out on him.

“Stupid,” he heard Lance say. “You blew out your legs.”

“My legs…” Keith repeats back.

“I told you yesterday you were sick, and what do you do? Practice for four hours straight. Don’t even pay attention to your body. What are you, some sort of masochist? Christ, Keith, you could’ve seriously hurt yourself…” Lance is rambling. It’s not uncommon, but the subject matter he’s taken to is.

Keith lets himself lean on Lance, and focuses on his profile as they make their way to the exit. Lance rambles the entire time they walk to his bedroom, but his voice is more worried then angry, and his hold on Keith is gentle but firm.

The truth was that Keith had never seen Lance soft and gentle and quiet, and ever since he’d met him he didn’t really think Lance could be. He was loud and obnoxious and energetic, always.

But watching him now, this boy with trembling hands and a shadow of worry on his face, trying his best to calm Keith and soothe him back to health, Keith knew for certain that this side of Lance was just as much a part of him as was everything else he’d come to know.

He pictures a younger Lance, young but the oldest of his siblings, holding his little sister to his chest, chin resting gently on the crown of her head and squeezing tightly enough that she doesn’t have to see the world and how cruel it can be. He pictures a Lance with gentle hands, pushing away the stray hairs from his little brother’s face, Lance kissing his mother’s forehead, his father’s hand, Lance bent on his knees petting a stray cat, Lance with that huge smile of his, striking up conversations with strangers that looked like they needed someone to prop them back up. He pictured Lance stopping an accident by shoving a woman out of the way, Lance carrying too many bags for his neighbor, Lance cooking dinner for his family.

It fit. It made perfect sense that when he wasn’t the way Keith knew him as, he was also this someone, too. They were not separate in entity, and Keith was beginning to see that, the more that he was around Lance.

He knew he wanted to know all the parts of Lance, everything that made up this person, the good and the bad and the in between, and knowing that made him scared in a way that started his heart beating fast and a fluttering in his stomach.

“You’re delirious,” Lance says. He’s got the back of his hand pressed against Keith’s forehead, concern in the pout of his lips and crease between his brows. He’d quieted when they’d finally made it to the room, shoved a struggling Keith to his bed with gentle care and then gotten to work patching up the gash on his chest, one Keith couldn’t recall the source of. These are the first words he’s spoken for maybe an hour. Keith doesn’t have a good handle on time as of the moment.

“Hu?”

“You already know me, stupid. I’m not that deep.”

“Oh,” Keith says, realizing then he’s spoken aloud some parts of what he’d just been thinking. He thinks he must really be, as Lance has observed, delirious, given his acceptance of the fact he’s just confessed. He thinks back to a moment ago and tries to recall which parts he actually omitted between the flurry of thoughts.

“You’re lucky I made it there to shut off the simulator. It would have kept going at you.”

“Why would it do that?”

“You passed out, Keith. It doesn’t stop unless there’s verbal command. You know that. Why did you go in there sick?”

“I’m not sick.”

Lance looks at him then. There’s a little blood smeared on his cheeks. Keith guesses it’s his.

“You’re not sick,” he says. “Says the kid who passed out, has a fever over a hundred, and doesn’t even know what he’s saying.”

“Maybe a little.”

“Sure.”

Lance goes back to work on Keith, so Keith takes to memorizing the lines of his face to distract himself. He still can’t quite feel his limbs, but the sting on his chest hurts like hell, and it shows in his face, and shows in the concern written in Lance’s body, in his face, too.

“Done,” he says at length, pulling away from the bed to grab something. Keith hasn’t the energy to ask him not to, but he doesn’t have to, since Lance just switches off the light and comes right back, climbing into bed beside Keith.

The mattress sinks to his weight as he pulls the comforter over them both.

“Your stomach won’t take anything right now,” he says quietly. “But I’m waking you in an hour to eat or you’ll be worse in the morning.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve got too many siblings to count,” Lance answers. “Next time you want to spar through debilitating sickness, ask me to come so I can make sure you don’t die.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, why do you do that?”

“Hm?”

“Practice so much. You don’t really need it, Keith. You could take break, but this isn’t the first time you’ve blown out every limb on your body.”

“It’s distracting. I don’t have to think about anything but the pain.”

“Think about what?”

“I don’t know. Dying, I guess. Saving the universe, being alone, you.”

“Me.”

“Yeah.”

“I like how honest you get when you’re half dead.”

“Thanks.”

“How about I get to be a distraction instead.”

“That would hurt more than sparring.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You don’t know that.”

Lance twists in the bed, propping himself up on an elbow and looking down at Keith. His eyes are dark, darker even when there is no light in the room. It’s startling, and makes Keith wonder what they see.

Lance places a palm on Keith’s chest, avoiding of the newly earned gash that he’s just bandaged up.

“I won’t hurt you, Keith,” he says. There is such certainty in his voice that Keith instantly believes him. Despite everything, he believes him. Feeling is starting to come back.

“You are,” Keith says.

“I am what?”

“You said earlier, that you’re not anything more than what you make yourself out to seem. But you’re wrong.”

“Keith,” Lance says. It is all he says, so Keith goes on.

“I don’t care what you think. There’s more than what I thought about you and more than what you think you are. I want to know all of you, even if you hurt me.”

Lance laughs, both a sad and content sound, plopping back down beside Keith, staring up at the ceiling instead of down at him.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I did almost die for a distraction.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“Says you. You’re the one who made the diagnosis.”

“Unbelievable.”

Keith smiles, knowing Lance won’t see it in the dark, and besides, his ever so slight snoring tells Keith that he’s fallen asleep. It’s the fastest he’s ever known anyone to.

True to his word, Lance wakes him up an hour later. It’s the best hour of sleep he’s ever gotten though, so he doesn’t complain.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for the ooc-ness i'm still trying to figure out the characters & thank you for reading!


End file.
